Quick Overview

• Future moves in official U.S. interest rates will be closely tied to incoming data, but for now the Federal Reserve does not need to push rates beyond neutral, a top central bank official said on Friday.
  

• The ISM index of services increased from 56.8 to 60.1
  

• The University of Michigan's consumer sentiment index dropped from 91.2 to 86.7
  

• YoY consumer prices in Japan were up 0.5% in January.
  

• An index of services in the Euro zone increased from 57.0 to 58.2
  

• Informa Economics said expects the U.S. to produce 22.45 million bales of cotton in 2006-2007, down from 23.7 million bales the previous year. They forecast 119.7 million bales of world production in 2006-2007.